Focusing on the integration of early reading and writing skills, a study examined the instructional use of daily dialogue journals over a 5-month period in a class of 10 third-grade Native American students living on an Indian reservation in northern Michigan. Students were required to make an entry of at least three lines every day, all writing…

Research has suggested that students have difficulty completing content area writing assignments if the teacher's written instructions are not clear. Students' written work is more likely to be of higher quality if teachers specify the assignment's audience and purpose and offer prewriting instruction. Controversy exists over how explicit the…

Focusing on the development of students' writing skills and on the instructional techniques used to promote those skills, this report relates the findings of the second phase of the National Study of Writing in the Secondary School. In addition to further analysis of data collected during the first phase of the study, the report provides…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 16 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) a study of the meanings of experience of ten published feminist women writers; (2) the composing activities of computer literate writers; (3) the informational…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 24 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the composing process and modes of invention; (2) methods of teaching composition in various integrated programs; (3) writing in peer groups; (4) holistic invention; (5) computer…

Presents brief stories of two students that illustrate how children's symbolic interactions and social relationships (how they interact with materials and people) influence their ways of gaining control over the interrelated parts of written language, and how these "casts of mind" may eventually emerge more fully within their stories.…

Contains annotations of books from five countries--Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and United States. Annotations are arranged in following categories: (1) Teaching Theory and Practice; (2) Reading, Writing, and Speaking; (3) Fiction; (4) Poetry; (5) Drama; (6) Course and Source Books; (7) Media and Computers; and (8) Reference Books.…

Describes a two-year study of one college student's efforts to produce appropriate content area writing in different disciplines. Using observation, interviews, composing-aloud protocols, and text analysis, evaluates the student's performance according to the Gricean rubric of conversation. Concludes that success was affected by unarticulated…

Suggests that peer group instruction is one of the most significant benefits to have emerged from the process approach to writing instruction. Presents a teacher's classroom research on the peer group response method. (ARH)

This study argues that community college composition instructors need to develop their own body of research and scholarship on theories of writing, one that is not solely dependent upon four-year college theory, but that works as an equal partner in the composition theory debate. The premise that community college students are different from…

Developed as a vehicle of communication for the Reading Recovery Council of North America, this journal represents an international effort to connect researchers, teachers, and all those interested in early literacy. Articles in the special inaugural issue on Reading Recovery are: "Reading Recovery: An Overview" (Stanley L. Swartz and…

Describes a representative sample of recent research on the uses of microcomputer-based word processing in composition instruction. Topics discussed include revision strategies; collaborative writing; student attitudes and motivation; writing quality; implementation of word processing; problems; equity issues; and questions for future research.…

A study examined the feedback associated with "author's chair" to determine the opportunities provided for students to learn about literacy. Subjects, six boys and three girls between the ages of 8 and 10 in a self-contained classroom for students identified as learning disabled, were exposed to a process-oriented approach to writing instruction…

A study examined the effects of an integrated reading/writing curriculum on the narrative writing of students in general education eighth-grade classrooms. Subjects, 93 students (including 10 with learning disabilities) from middle to upper-middle socioeconomic backgrounds at a suburban middle school in western Oregon, were administered narrative…

Prepared by educators, theoreticians, and researchers, the papers in this collection address the connections and interdependencies between writing and cognition. The 24 papers deal with the following topics: (1) rhetoric and romanticism; (2) cognitive immaturity and remedial college writers; (3) current brain research and the composing process;…